Garland traded to Angels

There’s one less pitcher off the trade market today after the White Sox sent Jon Garland to the Angels for shortstop Orlando Cabrera. Mets GM Omar Minaya said the trade market is one place where he could have replaced Tom Glavine’s 13 victories and 200 innings.

Garland is 28 and won 18 games in 2005 and 2006 before sliding to 10-13 last year.

The odds are long for the Mets trading for an ace, so it will be a pitcher like Garland where they will have to go.

John Delcos enters his third season covering the Mets for The Journal News after eight seasons on the Yankees beat. Prior to coming to New York, John covered the Baltimore Orioles, Cleveland Browns and Cleveland Indians.

Garland’s a pretty reliable league-average pitcher. If you can fill out the bottom of your rotation with league-average pitching you are doing very well. The Mets had to use Brian Lawrence for 6 starts last year. A starting pitcher like Garland would really help the Mets. If he’s one of your top 3 starters then you have problems but as a bottom of the rotation guy he would be great.

Scoop is right on. No ace; keep the kids and let them develop in the bigs.

Taylor, the Mets didn’t have to pitch Lawrence. They made a corporate decision to pitch that junk vice a kid while teams like the Sox and Phils and Rocks were filling their holes with kids. Bad front offices make bad decisiuons and Lawrence was one of the worst, especially his September call back. And if we would have gotten Garland he would have been in the top 3 because indeed we do have problems, they stem from a bad farm system and a bad GM/owner son. (Owner son added for Scoop….)

JD: Are you saying Omar has given up on the trade market?? That’s how your write up sounds.

Judge Omar once the off-season’s done (or at least wait a few weeks). No serious observer of the team actually believes he’s done dealing. The only ones peddling that line are those who take pleasure in making absurd accusations against Omar.

If you are referring to me brother Outerboro then i suggest you retract your demand because if you read my posts you know that I crticize Omar for the body of the work he “accomplished” since 31 July 2006.

Panic trade of Nady for Roberto Henrnadez and Ollie. We didn’t need or use Roberto and we could have had Ollie for 10 cents.

Pick up of Shaun Green and Guillermo Mota.

Failure to see changing market last winter and losing Bradford and compensting by giving 3 year deal to Schoeneweiss.

Failure to pick up starter Winter 2006-7 because he was too in love with Zito/Boras.

Pick up of part time Alou to be full time LFer.

Failure to build farm system. (I may be harsh on this because I don’t know what we have in low levels)

Failure to protect only catching prospect on 40 man roster because he signed 48 year old to multi year deal.

Failure to improve pathetic bullpen in July 07. Claimed this was the year and ensured it wasn’t.

Failure to move minor league outfield prospects out of CF after signing Beltran forcing them to try to learn in bigs.

Multi year contract to Mota.

Depleting minor league relievers for pure junk. Failure to recognize that Lindstrom and Bell were major league ready.

And by the way, I am a serious observoer and I think he’s done making big moves… He’s become too cautious, whether its himslef or the Wilpons putting pressure on him I can’t say, but he’s a different GM today. I’d rather have Steve Phillips back. And I can’t believe I wrote that!

I would take Garland if it would only cost a second baseman, but I think it will require more than Gotay. A 1.3 WHIP is pretty solid, 23rd in the AL last season, and he was 25th in ERA. Only 98 strikeouts, but only 57 walks in 208 innings. He would be great as a #3/4, and still decent as a #2.

We can have Garland if we want. But his name is Carlos Silva, and he won’t cost anything.

And Sloppy, I’ll ignore your crack about Steve Phillips, because it’s ludicrous. Omar is waiting for the Santana situation to develop. If the Twins don’t trade Johan-and now I’m thinking they won’t-other pitchers will come available. And Omar will definitely be a player for either Slowey or Garza.

If Omar is done with major trades for the off-season, I will be one surprised Mets fan.

Sloppy I know your mad today so I won’t say much. I can’t believe you think Steve Phillips would be better. He should have been fired earlier because of the front office affair he had. Omar has had a bad year but remember Dec 3 is the date teams have to offer arbitration to their own FA or get no compensation if they sign elsewhere, so lets see what happens then. The only hot rumor I have heard is that if the Twins resign Santana which is possible. They offered him a contract similar to Carlos Zambrano they might think about trading Matt Garza. Would you trade Gomez for Garza ?

Guys, I am not mad today but that Phillips line woke everyone up!!!!
Why does everyone think the Mets are getting an ace????

1. On the one hand everyone says our prospects are crummy.
2. When was the last time an ace was traded, and today since everyone is making money, why would anyone trade their ace?
3. Last year Met fans and the press were sure Zito was coming to Queens. Now you’re all sure Santana is coming. Based on what?
4. Omar’s only big name trade was for Delgado who was on a team dumping everyone and anyone and he didn’t get the ace from Florida. Nobody is in mass dump mode this winter. His trade for Maine was because the owner didn’t like a player wife’s Santa outfit. What a plan!!!!!
5. If he’d show one hint he wants some change, like even releasing Mota and showing he rectifies his errors, maybe I’d believe. But I see nothing other than a string of bad or whacky moves for the last year and a half.

As for your question, I have written elsewhere on this blog that I would now make no moves since we won’t get an ace. On offense I’d get anybody who can catch a ball to team with Castro, Milledge in right, Carlos takes over left when Alou goes down, I’d move F-Mart to first in spring training to prepare him to replace Delgado in 2009/2010.
In the pen ElDuque goes pen, Rotation is Maine/Ollie/Pedro and 2 from Mulvey/Humber/Pelfrey and see what we have at end of 2008. In pen Mota/Schoeneweis are released two weeks ago. El Duque is long man. Smith gets full year, If Sanchez is healthy he is set up man and if we really are out of race then Wags is gone 31 July and either Sanchez/Heilmann close or they share.
So pen is
Wags
Heilmann
Feliciano
Sosa
El Duque
Smith
Loser of kids fighting for starting job
Sanchez or rag off of reject pile in spring

Sorry to go off topic, but, I think the timing is right. I think that the Colorado Rockies, the Boston Red Sox, and/or MLB should make some huge announcement that takes the back page away from AROD so that he can understand the meaning of being upstaged. I would even start the rumor of J. Santana for A. Heilman and two or three prospects if it would get him off the back of all of the NY Newspapers.

Back on topic. I see Omar visiting with a few of the American League clubs for pitching and may be a catcher. By Spring Training, I think we will see at least one of our young pitiching prospects and one or two of our young outfield prospects with Milledge the most likely to go since he has the most major league exposure. And speaking of Heilman, I wish they would either start him, or, trade him for value so he can start somewhere else. The “he wants to start, but, they won’t let him” story has long since worn out its play time. Maybe Tampa Bay or Baltimore would have something to offer in a Pitcher/Catcher deal?

You prove my point completey. Omar has become a chicken. If he signs Zito we be in the playoffs, If he trades with the As we be in the playoffs. He got Lawrence and Chan Ho. We not be in the playoffs. How much money do the Wilpons make if we play in October??? When Omar got Pedro he took a chance. The Sox said his arm wouldn’t last and they were right. But he was worth the $$ for the franchise. 2006-2007 he takes no chance and we are much worse now.
This year there are no # 1 or # 2 out in the FA market. Teams are all making money so it is unlikey they trade an ace and if they do others apparently have better prospects. So why do we get the ace? It doesn’t make sense.
I hope you guys are all right and scoop and sloppy are wrong but I don’t think so.

slop, I don’t completely agree w/your assessment of Omar. As I have said before he has done a good job getting the role player like Chavez, Anderson, valentin, Easley, etc.

He has yet to show an ability to find the young player who blossoms (except Maine/Perez). You can’t complain what has/hasn’t done w/o giving him some points for some of the good trades/signings.

The biggest complaint you could make is that the farm is not deep. i don’t know enough to say if that is a lack of concern by FO or it just takes more than the 3 yrs he has been here or he and his staff just don’t have the knowledge to aquire/draft the right guys.

And when it comes to pulling the trigger, he has wanted to do that-ex. he was set to get Oswalt but then Sanchez got hurt and he had to stop that (plus the O’s backed out). I’m sure there are other trades that were stopped but not b/c he is chicken.

Also let’s remember that he was set to get DiceK but the sox went way over what everyone expected. If we had/have him we are in the playoffs in 07 and we probably don’t need to be concerned about SP for 08.

I completely disagree on Zito. He has not been the same guy for several yrs. And the giants probably regret siging him for a deal that is worse than what Arod got from Tx.

Let’s see what happens. I’ll be upset if he/FO get a guy who is not an impact player and overpay.

I’d rather he do nothing unless it is a top pitcher. The old garbage in-garbage out…

But I’ll always be leery of this franchise until they show an ability to be a consistent winner b/c the bottom line comes down to the the owners. And the wilpons have not shown themselves to be the Steinbrenners or the maras…..yet….

The Mets need an ace, but they also need someone at the bottom of the rotation. They can’t have a repeat of last year where someone like Lawrence is pitching.

They have three set pitchers for the rotation next year:

Pedro
Maine
Perez

They have El Duque, but at this point he may be better suited as a long man/spot starter. But he could be a fifth starter who gets skipped (for extra rest) when possible. Best case scenario he is in the bullpen to provide depth.

So that leaves 2 spots open. You’ve got Pelfrey, but he hasn’t shown that he’s ready either. If he went 5-6 instead of 3-8 the Mets go to the playoffs. He was bad. And the problem I see with him is that he actually made the team out of Spring Training last year. So anyone who’s thinking “give him a shot to earn a rotation slot”, well he did that last year and spit the bit. I say try him in the bullpen as a 6th inning, start the inning guy and let him build some confidence there.

That still leaves the 2 open rotation spots. Trading for an “ace” type would be great if possible. But that’s where the signing of an innings eater like Carlos Silva or Livan Hernandez really comes into play. It may not be sexy, but it’s only money not players. The Mets have to realize that they have an advantage that only a few teams do – they have lots of cash.

Signing a guy like Silva/Hernandez may not seem that great now, but when we don’t have to see a Brian Lawrence take the mound it will be worth it.

No way on Silva b/c he will want a 4-5 yr/11-12MM and he might then prevent the Mets from bringing back OP after 08 who could command 15MM for 5-7 yrs. L Hernandez is ok if he is just 1-2 yrs. and the Mets are not going to pitch ElDuque as along man-not for 6MM.

Anyway, did anyone see SNY Mets Hotstove?

They also stated they doubt Silva b/c of the money.

torrealba-he was incensed that the Mets would ask ? about his health-it may have never got to a physical….which is good in my opinion b/c…

r hernandez might be available from the O’s b/c they can’t shop tejada and they want to dump some salary…

they also mentioned that willis could be had b/c the marlins can’t get their stadium and they might have to dump his salary….this could take awhile b/c the marlins might be hoping beyond hope that they can get the stadium worked out…so it could be later in the winter…

these are probably the best kind of deals the mets could make…teams that need to dump salary so they are willing to take lesser talent…and the guys we are getting are coming off down yrs so they can’t expect to get alot back…

Who knows maybe Willis in Ny turns it around…

and if these guys don’t work out you’ve only got them for 2 yrs (I believe for RH) and willis for one.

LoDuca…they doubt it unless he only wants 1 yr

They were all in agreement that you only trade the farm for an impact player….

I agree if they had signed Zito we would be in the playoffs, but although he did seem to pitch well he is not worth that kind of $$. $$ you would pay Santana, Oswalt, et al.

Omar got Pedro to get the ball rolling. Remember – no one wanted him for the $$ he wanted. It turned out to be good for many reasons most importantly that it got us Carlos.

Then the following year he lands us a Catcher, a 1B and a closer and we knock on the door.

Last year we took a step back because not much was out there and I believe the organization felt the young guys ( Lastings/Pelfrey/Humber ) would come through. None of those players did. He did get us Alou to bridge the OF and lucky he did although he is injured a lot.

That brings us to this year. The post season is still young although it seems longer because ours really started in early September.

Stay tuned. I believe that Omar is a good executive.

For those who compare us to the Yanks in the free agent market, the only thing the Yanks have done is re-sign the FA they wanted back. We have done the same. Neither team has gone out and made a major acquisition yet. We lost Glavine, but we knew that and most people here don’t want him anyway.

We just need to chill. If the season starts and we do not have a catcher, another OF, a starting pitcher worth something and a semblance of a pen then we can run him out of town.

Maybe I’m a little hard on Omar but too me he changed in Summer of 06.
Scoop: Do you think the Mets play in October if they get Zito??? If you think not, then Omar did OK. If you agree that Zito gets them more wins than Pelf/Sosa/Chan Ho/Lawrence/Williams/Vargas etc then Omar failed.
Bench: I give him credit for Easley and Catillo. Valentin/Endy/Castro was before my date of 31 July 2006 when I see a different guy. I don’t give him credit for Anderson because he lost Anderson by not giving him 2 year in the first place, so its a wash. Look at the bench he gave Willie last year. Newhan was our top lefty!!!!! NEWHAN
Pen: He killed us adding Mota and Schoeneweiss and Sele while losing Bradford/Oliver….. Both had down years last yar but better than the replacements.
Oswalt: He failed to get the deal done.
DiceK he failed to get the deal done. Red Sox went overboard???? Tell that to their fans as they celebrate soemthing we haven’t for 21 years. Theo got the job done and Omar says he (Theo) paid too much. I would like to be celebrating instead of whining.
I agree with you about Silva. Last year the guy might put us over the top. Next year we need more. Do nothing. Play kids, let them develop We be good in 09.
We’re not getting Santana by trade or FA. Last spring guys said we’d get Zambrano because the Cubs were being sold. UHOH>>> They signed him anyway.

Slop, it is easy to say that having Zito gets you to the playoffs but since the Mets don’t want to go over the threshold for the lux tax, getting Zito at the deal the giants did would prevent them from acquiring other talent in the future. That is why I wouldn’t want the contract he signed w/the giants. At 5/75 that the Mets talked about it would have been ok to me. Again your complaint should be directed to ownership. They set the parameters.

DiceK-the sox did go way over what everyone expected the highest bid to be. People thought a bid in the low 30s would get it done. Omar/FO went to 38, more than the Yanks. But he and everyone else did not know the others bids. Again, I’m sure ownership told him the bid should be 38MM. Again your complaint should be directed to ownership. They set the parameters.

Guys, you tell me that every possible move isn’t worth the money. The market is what it is. If you didn’t like Zito you could have signed a Lilly or a Meche type for 10/4 and made the playoffs. Omar couldn’t because he fell in love with the Zito/Boras thing thinking it would be the same as it was with Beltran. No pass. He blew it completely. Even the Royals signed a pitcher for 10/4/ The Royals dish out 540 mil and we can;t do it in NYC.
As for Oswalt, if you go after a guy and you get nothing and you have no plan B that succeeds then you fail, no matter the reason.

The difference between the Yanks signing up their regulars and us is that the Yanks feel tey have solid kids ready to fill the rotation immediately and we don’t.

The diffreence between signing Pedro and signing nobody now because they are too pricey is that either Omar is afraid of wasting Wilpon money like he did with Pedro in 07 or the Wilpons are too damn satisfied with attendance and figure they don’t need to have a good team to sell the next 5 years and they’ve told him don’t spend big time. We’re becoming like the Pirates. Bucs Won’t spend but the owners are making $$. Nice park. They lose but sell out every weekend on bobbleheads and fireworks.
Red Sox nation and Yankee nation are lucky they have owners who demand to win, not demand to save money. Too bad Steinbrenner didn’t buy us. I bet you never hear a Yankee fan justify a non-move because the guy wanted too much.

Just don’t fill the bottom of the rotation w/a guy who wants 5/60 b/c you won’t be able to then get the top of the rotation guy. The mets have a budget. I don’t agree w/it but they won’t go over a payroll that will force the lux tax.

slop, is the govt afiard to spend your money? If you have kids are the afraid to spend your money? Omar is not afraid to spend the wilpons money. He doesn’t own the team. He makes recommedations and the wilpons say yes or no.

Assuming you are correct Scoop, then the question is do the owners want to field the best team possible or not. It seems they want to field the bargain basement team, in which case we as fans should return Shea to its half empty state. When the turnstiles don’t click the Wilpons want the best unril….And if they don’t want the best the GM should leave otherwise I have to blame him…..
More importantly the GMen are in pretty good shape for the playoffs. They tried last year to show the Mets how to choke and the Mets perfected the art. Hopefully the GMEN won’t try it again. Anybody gonna be in Giant Stadium Sunday? But notice the Giants made some changes. New strategies on O and D. Using all the defensive ends at the same time, to try to hide their hideous bullpen, I mean secondary, dealing with their strengths, much more varied passing set ups. Anybody notice that from the Mets yet. We’ll see if they follow the Giants again or not.

PS: The debate here has become really great. Discussions without any personal attacks. This is blogosphere at its best. So everybody enjoy Thanksgiving and I hope you all got it right about what Omar’s gonna do and I got it wrong!

They have a new defensive coordinator who brought in a new scheme. They replaced the old cb’s with one who was drafted this year. A no name RB has helped them win and the incumbant who replaced Tiki is doing well.

The QB seems to be playing better so far.

But mostly I think it is the defensive scheme and the coordinator.

I don’t think it translates to baseball well.

Willie came in a few years ago and emphasized defense and fundamentals. Hustle all that stuff he did as a player.

The team as a whole plays sound baseball. Some players have issues, but the team in the spring works on the details and seems prepared.

The issue as I see it with the Mets is our pitching is weak. We do not have the horses. Strategy can’t help here. They worked a plan and in the last month the horses died of exhaustion.

That is why I want a good pitcher who can go 7+ every 5th day. Hopefully Maine will be more consistant this year and not get tired again. He only pitched 1/2 a season last year.

Ollie has his annual issues with focus and control and staying within himself. If Pedro can come back this year and pitch a whole season even only going 6+ that would help, but we need a #1 this off season.

Pelfrey/Humber/Mulvey won’t help with that this year. The only thing they can do is put pressure on the pen. We do that already with all of our starting pitching.

dave. Let’s go point by point.
1.Giant changes vs Met changes. Giant coach job on line. Met manager job SHOULD be on line.
2. Giant Def coordinator made major scheme changes. Coaches are more important in football, I’ll give you that, but point is Giants changed coaches on both sides and had a plan to replace Tiki. Jacobs plu decent subs and throw the ball to everyone. Mets seem to have no plan. Just panic moves.
3. Willie emphasied hustle. Well, I guess he forgot about that in 207. He even suppressed the fire in the kids.
4. We don’t have the horses. Well, its not my fault or your fault. Its the GMs fault. He dumped all the young releievers for nobody and signed 3 bums to “help”.
5. We need a number 1. Why? Our pen will suck without major overhaul, which isn’t even being mentioned. and Mets are too cheap with $$ or too afraid to give up prospects to pull the trigger. They wouldn’t pull trigger to win the division last Summer, what makes anyone think they’ll pull triggr IF, and that’s a big if someone wants to lose an ace. You say our kid pitchers won’t help. Then why would someone else want them? No lgic to that. Don’t say they want to dump salary. Who was last ace traded? Beckett?? 3 years ago. They are all in profit now. So who is dumping salary?

The money issue I have w/the wilpons is that they keep the parts of the baseball operation separate from one another and won’t spend profits from say SNY on the team payroll. it would be interesting to know if other sources of money hat will be coming in like the 20MM for naming rights (CitiField) or the 30MM for MLB.com are considered “baseball operations”.

Only money from the true baseball operation (tickets, concessions, parking) goes to the team. This is different from the yanks who use money from YES to bolster the team payroll. At least this is how it has been reported.

Plus, it has also been reported that the wilpons won’t go over the lux tax threshold b/c selig hates that teams (yanks, sox) spend so much (hence the tax in the first place) and they don’t want to ruffle the commisioner.

Of course it is their money and their business and they chose how to run it. As a fan it is frustrating to know that there could be more spent on the team if they wanted to do it.

And when you are spending more than any other team in the NL, you don’t have much of a leg to stand on to make complaints.

That is why everytime someone ssys sign Liily or a Silva I get concerned it might happen and if it does and the guy stinks, we will be stuck watching him for several yrs b/c the wilpons don’t ever eat salary. The ex for far this yr is Castillo.

But on the other hand they won’t, in general, go after the top talent b/c it costs too much. It’s not a recipe that lends itself to long term consistent winning unless you develop w/in. That is where Omar concerns me the most-can he develop talent w/in-the jury is still out.

If we get a #1 type pitcher ( or even one that is close ) what that does besides solidifying the rotation generating stability and the sense/hope that if you lose a couple of games that we will win this one ( most recently Pedro was that guy before he got hurt ); it also gives the pen a rest. As we saw last year the pen got tired. I forget the numbers but at one time in the early part of the season our pen was top 3 in the league or majors in terms of era, effectiveness. My take on that is that besides players playing well and all they were fresh. It also helped that Smith was on fire.

In the second half many of our starters fell off a cliff. El Duque had his usual stint on the DL, Maine – after an MVP start – had major issues , could not win games, could not last 5 etc. Ollie also had his issues for a month or so ( I know I had both on my fantasy squad and took a mjor hit in many catg – wins/innings/K/era ). Not to beat the dead horse but at the end of the day our own Tommy G was the most consistant throughout the whole season. Yes he had issues leading up to 300, but you have to expect that. Once the proverbial monkey was off his back he went back to his usual effective self.

My point is in this long winded reply is that if we get a real stud pitcher it solves 2 things:

1) Solidifies rotation creating stability/wins/etc.
2) Saves the pen – They actually get a rest during the season.

If you get one guy like that and Maine and Ollie repeat last year what you get is at least for a month or so you have 60% of the games where your pen pitches 1 or 2 innings. That means when you may need them in the dog days of summer or in the stretch run they ain’t dead.

And you don’t even have to change ( which we may not do much of because of the contracts ).

If we do get a #1 guy I hope they don’t trade this Mulvey guy. Alot of baseball people are saying he is better (in the sense he has command of his pitches and is not afraid to throw them) than Pelfrey. Of course they could be saying that b/c pelf has been exposed to MLB and Mulvey has not.

Here is an example of where you wonder if Omar can pick the right guys. Pelfrey was his pick and from I’ve seen he needs more seasoning to command his off speed stuff and someone needs to get it into his head that he needs to not be afraid to throw strikes. Hard to say if he will overcome these issues.

Obviously Mulvey is an Omar pick, but the organization appears to much higher on Pelfrey than Mulvey.

The supposed experts, however, believe pelfrey is only a reliever; not a front of rotation guy, while Mulvey is projected to be a #3-4 SP. That is not a good sign for Omar. of course the expers believe F Martinez is going to be great and he is an Omar guy too. Time will tell if Omar can pick young talent.

And since this FO/owners don’t want to spend giant sums of money they eed to develop some from w/in.

I hear all this talk about how Omar has failed to find a # 1 guy. The draft is a crapshoot. Have you all forget the Santana was a Rule 5 pick up by the Twins. They let him take time and he developed into the ace he is. The truth is they got lucky. Remember this is also the same organization that non-tendered David Ortiz after they could not find anybody
( including Omar ) who wanted him in a trade.

Sloppy – I wouldn’t say the Mets are trying to field a “bargain basement team” when they are spending upwards of $100 million per season. You must be thinking of the Marlins. But your point still gets across that once they get close to their self-imposed cap or the luxury tax, they start thinking cheap rather than talented. The real issue is why they are so close to the luxury tax with a team that is bad enough to choke on the division title. Omar has to look closer to spend money in the right places to keep enough open for the top talent later. Giving big money to someone who will fill our fourth spot in the rotation would not be smart rather than waiting to fill the second spot. Hopefully, we can get someone who’s already in the organization to fill the fourth spot, or sign someone worth #4 money, but then we can’t complain when he’s average.

scoopcoop: to say no SNY money comes to the Mets is just plain wrong. SNY has to show that it is paying a fee to the Mets to show the games ( and it has to be a legit amount ) or
MLB would be after the Mets for hiding money from revenue sharing. As far as the luxury tax that is not really a problem because if the Mets went over the luxury tax they could deduct against construction expenses for CitiField.
I think the Mets would go over the luxury tax for the right players. Just the right players are not available in the FA market.

Perhaps you are right about the reasons we do not go after the talent we need.

I hope you are wrong.

I hope that it was a considered decision last year where the breaks didn’t go our way and now that the fans are upset and the organization does not seem to be able to offer major leaague talent that is ready now they will change gears and trade the 2 birds in the bush for one in the hand.

Spider: The reason I say we want to be a bargain basement team is because the Mets seem to take great pleasure in Endy, Valentin Castro etc. And since they signed Pedro/Beltran they seem to think that top players should come begging to join he fun. Every guy is now too much and every trade is too much. The Red Sox have a need they pull the trigger. No ifs and or buts. Last year I thought Omar misread the market thereby losing Bradford and findng no starter. This year we hear he picked Castillo because he was cheaper than Eckstein, he’s looking for a bargain at the plate. Well when is he going to go back to the original philosphy of getting the best.
If the Twins weren’t just dumping Castillo last year he wouldn’t have made that move either.

And by the way the cheapskate Marlins have 2 WS flags in a decade, two more than we have in the last 2 decades.

I’ve been readng this debate and at first I had the opinion that Omar was a great GM. But I’ve changed my mind reading these positions. Maybe its Omar, maybe its the Wilpons, but we just don’t seem willing to go the Extra Mile to be an elite club.

Scott, I did not say that the wilpons don’t get money from SNY.Of course they get money from SNY. They are a majority owner in SNY.

What I said is that they treat SNY as a separate business and will not add payroll based upon revenues from SNY.

As for the lux tax, they have had plenty of chances to get a guy that would have put them over that level. Just a week ago they could have made a bid on Arod. They could have figured out a way to put him on 1b if they wanted to get him.

Someone also said that finding talent is a crapshoot. The Mets must have never had the dice in their hands, b/c for 46 yrs we have never had an MVP, only 1 cy young winner, and I think only a couple ROY and only 2 WS winners. Even by chance you would think in 46 yrs the Mets would have more than that to show.

I’d like to believe that the Braves and Yanks and now the sox did it through some good evaluation and not just by chance.